Friday, July 27, 2012

northern running route

I took the camera on my long run today to get some pictures of the "northern" river loops. The kamogawa north of imadegawa is definitely my favorite course. Unfortunately it was really hot and muggy today so some of the long distance shots are just faded into the background. Like last week, I'll include approximate mile markers along my course (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/203712981) Here are some pictures:

this is the western side of the river about 1/2 mile south of Imadegawa. I took a similar picture last week looking south; this was part of the Kyoto marathon course (mile 0.75)

This is looking north about 200 yards north of imadegawa. 2 weeks ago those two "water slides" (as N calls them) were totally covered in a rush of water (mile 1.5).

continuing north. The surface here is sandy dirt, and very soft (mile 2).

the path narrows as you get further north (mile 3).

Almost at the top now, the MK shuttle livery up there is the signal that the path ends soon. The bridge you can barely see going across is the end of the path (mile 4).

standing on the bridge looking north at the mountains. Often in the winter there would be snow or ice along the trail and along this bridge, and the mountains often had a light dusting even if the lower parts did not. Hard to imagine snow right now, 95 degrees (mile 4.5).

Turning around, coming south. The path on this side is a bit more gravely (mile 5)

But the path changes to dirt too (mile 5.5)

Getting close to imadegawa again (mile 7?)

For a while then I didn't take any pictures. I was in the heat and sun and I was just trying to keep moving. But there were a few pictures I didn't get last week that I wanted to make sure I got this week, both after mile 11:

These cool square benches are south of higashiichijo dori (the street the kids school is on) and N led me and M on "ninja" training on them. We're looking north towards Imadegawa here.

Looking south at more of the benches.

These two benches are special for me, a nice place to sit, and I spent an afternoon here last fall when I learned of the death of a friend.